Dear Anyone Who Thinks Sex Addiction Doesn't Exist...

11/06/2017 11:29 am ETUpdated
Nov 06, 2017

I think a helpful way of thinking about the issue of sex addiction is to compare it to the term “alcoholism.”

'Alcoholic' is a term used to describe someone who suffers from alcoholism - they often have a physical and/or psychological desire to consume alcohol beyond their capacity to control it, regardless of how it affects their life. --Christian Nordqvist, Medical News Today

As a diagnosis, “alcoholism” is not listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) - the codex formerly used by American mental health professionals to diagnose mental disorders. But no one would argue that because the term is not listed there, alcoholism doesn’t exist! A similar term was eventually written into the DSM to describe the disease of alcoholism, and they called it “Alcohol Dependence.” But the problem of compulsive alcohol use long pre-dated its classification in the DSM by any terms.

The term for sex addiction under consideration by DSM scholars was Hypersexual Disorder, though it was eventually rejected. However, when considering your best sources of information, remember that the DSM is no longer being used to diagnose diseases for insurance purposes, as it has fallen out of prominence in favor of the international version of codes called the International Classification of Diseases, or ICD. And the ICD-11, due out next year, is including sex addiction, calling it “compulsive sexual behavior disorder.”

If we replace the term alcoholism with “sex addiction,” we might consider this same above definition:

‘Sex addict’ is a term used to describe someone who suffers from sex addiction - they often have a physical and/or psychological desire to consume some form of sex beyond their capacity to control it, regardless of how it affects their life.

When defining addiction, experts often consider the presence of four main qualifiers:

1) LOSS OF CONTROL

2) UNSUCCESSFUL EFFORTS TO STOP (what separates the addict from the psychopath, who doesn’t try to stop)

3) TOLERANCE (needing more of the substance or behavior to get the same result)